Predictive Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:POAI) and Cvergenx Inc forged an agreement to form a strategic partnership that has the potential to revolutionize the field of radiation oncology with the first-ever genomics-based artificial intelligence (AI) approach to personalized radiotherapy and drug discovery.
Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Predictive Oncology, which has a unique approach to leveraging AI in oncology drug discovery, said the collaboration will leverage the combined power of both the firm’s proprietary technologies and domain expertise for a common purpose.
By applying Predictive Oncology’s drug discovery, AI and machine learning capabilities (PEDAL), and the Cvergenx precision genomics radiation therapy platform (pGRT), the two companies will pursue ways in which to optimize radiotherapy (RT) to improve patient outcomes in a way that has never been done before, said the firm.
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“The central principle in precision medicine is that cancer therapy should be tailored to the individual tumor biology. Even so, radiation therapy, the most commonly utilized therapeutic agent in clinical oncology, has yet to enter the era of precision therapy,” Predictive Oncology CEO Raymond Vennare said in a statement.
Precision medicine
“We believe that the next and most significant paradigm shift in the field of radiation oncology will come from exploiting tumor genomics to optimize RT prescription dose and to identify drug targets for the development of radiosensitizers and radioprotectors for biopharma and industry," Vennare added.
By channeling AI and machine learning in personalizing and optimizing radiotherapy prescription doses, combined with the discovery of medicinal radiosensitizers and radioprotectors, the strategic partnership could potentially lead to the repurposing of existing compounds, or the development of an entirely new class of drugs, said the company.
Over one million patients are treated with radiotherapy every year in the US. If the overall survival of RT-treated patients is improved by 4%, that would translate into 40,000 lives, almost equivalent to eradicating breast cancer, noted Predictive Oncology.
“Today, RT is prescribed based on a one-size fits all approach where all tumors are treated with uniform doses of RT. pGRT provides the first clinically validated approach to optimize RT prescription dose for each individual patient,” explained Javier Torres-Roca, the co-founder and acting CEO at Cvergenx.
“The pGRT platform has been shown to correctly identify radiosensitizers and radioprotectors from large pharmacogenomic screens. We believe this knowledge can improve the clinical outcome of patients treated with radiotherapy.”
Dr Torres-Roca is also professor of oncologic sciences at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, where pGRT is being evaluated in a Phase 2 prospective clinical trial for triple negative breast cancer.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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